Copy Paste

Evolution of the Species

Research, workshops, design studios

We are encountering with increased frequency that architectural designs are being copied all over the world. Internet is partly responsible to the speed of ideas dissemination, but also it seems conceptual design lacks the specificity of a handcraft, copying is easy and cheap and fast.

The context for many offices in crisis requires taking risks to survive. Yet competitions are investments with very low probabilities of success. So who can invest in originality anymore? Innovation requires patience, specially if you want to be original as well! Meanwhile clients demand fasterer and faster designs. Plans are seldom required; while a selling render is sufficient as long as it is exciting and provided in short notice. Cad becomes distant, photoshop reins.

We propose a method of to cope with the new demands, copying from the existing, systematically, openly and without guilt. In order to be able to move faster sources of design should be acknowledged as in most other human enterprises, yet the original must be improved or challenged. The result is shown in a video tutorial of how to do architecture in 3 minutes using photoshop and a selective library. This architectural tutorial for photoshop will give you a bonus to your design by indicating the steps followed from the original to the new copy.

The results of this reserach project, which contains a series of workshops, studios, interviews and essays, will be published in the upcoming publication “Copy/Paste”.